This invention relates to collaboration among users in a networked workstation system, i.e. a real-time computer-based cooperative, multi-user environment, through a multi-user interface. More specifically, the invention relates to the manner in which shared structured data objects containing some form of data is represented and controlled in a collaborative system together with means for presenting status and tracking information in a brief summary or compressed version to users so that the users are simultaneously aware of current changes to the status and activities in regard to shared structured data objects.
In a multi-user interface in a collaborative system, there must be an interface utility that permits multi-users to participate simultaneously together and share access to information relative to their participation.
Such an interface may start from the so called WYSIWIS ("What You See Is What I See") abstraction, which is pronounced "wizzy whiz". This abstraction may be used to guide the multi-user interface design in a strict sense, i.e., where users see exactly the same image of information, i.e., all user's images are identical, and also users can see where users are cursively pointing to and changing information. On the other hand, this abstraction may be used to guide the multi-user interface design in a relaxed sense, i.e., wherein the images are not necessarily all identical at the same time with respect to one or more attributes, such as, display space, currency of displayed information, time of displayed information and congruence of view. The user interface of this invention falls in the relaxed WYSIWIS category.
A wide variety of user interface techniques are known for enabling more than one user to access a structured data object. In some techniques, a structured data object is only displayed to one user at a time, while in others, a structured data object is displayed to a number of users at the same time.
Recently, more attention has been given to multi-user environments and collaborative type systems and their user interfaces to provide for free and friendly accessibility among different users to shared data via, for example, structured data objects, and access and control of such shared data. An example of recent attention in collaborative environment research work was the Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW'86) held in Dec. 3-5, 1986 in Austin, Tex. and the published proceedings from that conference.
The term, "structured data object", is used herein to generically mean a data object that contains a series of other data objects linked together in a predetermined manner which may or may not include a visual representation or functional abstraction on a display screen. Such data objects may have an associated set of operations and be linked to one another for one or more functional purposes. Examples of structured data objects are electonic versions of the following: (1) A multi-page document wherein each page is a data object linked to both preceding and subsequent pages, which are data objects, in a predetermined order (2) A workspace or desktop, as defined by the display screen per se which contains multiple structured data objects, e.g., file folders or documents, which, in turn, may contain other structured data objects. For example, a file folder may contain several documents, other file folders or a file drawer. A structured data object that is capable of holding other structured data objects is also referred to in the art a "container", e.g., a file folder is a container for documents. An example of a container is the file folder of the MacIntosh Computer of Apple Computer, Inc., which, when opened on the display, may contain a plurality of other file folders displayed in their iconic representation of individual folders. (3) A hypertext linked structured data object wherein individual workspaces or text windows themselves may be linked together in a predetermined manner. In U.S. patent application, Ser. No. 030,766, filed Mar. 25, 1987, entitled, "User Interface With Multiple Workspaces For Sharing Display System Objects", assigned to the assignee herein and incorporated herein by reference thereto, the term, "structured data objects" would include "display objects", "container" and "display system object" as defined therein.
The present invention deals with the employment of such structured data objects in a shared multi-user environment. In this context, the term "shared structure object" has reference to a structured data object that is accessible to more than one user through network coupled display workstation.
As is known in the art, the representation and display of structured data objects in a workstation environment may take various forms. A common technique is to present the contents or entries of structured data objects in a display region or workspace, such as a view window, on a CRT display. In order to maintain an unclustered display area in the displayed setting, however, it may be useful to provide a shrunken or small representation of the structured data object, such as an iconic representation, when a user is not engaging in activities relating to the structured data object. Such a representation of data may take the form of iconic representation of different structured data objects positioned on a workspace of a display screen, e.g., a display illustrating an office desktop metaphor employing various abstractions of a typical office environment, representative of real office objects, both physically accessible directly while seated at a desk or only physically accessible by moving from a desk to another office location away from the desk. Examples of these abstractions are a desktop, inbasket, outbasket, documents file folders and "books", which contains two or more consecutive document portions which together comprise a complete document. An example of such an office metaphor is the ViewPoint.TM. ("VP") software system available from Xerox Corporation in connection with its 8010 and 6085 display workstations. A more detailed description of this system and iconic representation therein is found in U.S. patent application, Ser. No. 856,525, filed Apr. 28, 1986, now U.S. Pat. No. 899,136 assigned to the assignee herein and incorporated herein by reference thereto.
A "book" in the ViewPoint software system is a structured data object of the container type and is a special directory that creates a relationship among the document portions that are contained in the book. Consecutive documents in a book can share a single page number series so that each document or a selected order of selected documents in the book automatically inherit sequential page numbering proceeding from document to document of the book. Also, scrolling from one document will automatically continue into the next sequential document. Further, there is a facility to automatically create a table of contents and index for the book which will automatically include content and indexing material into the table and index created relative to each document in the book. Lastly, the book will print as a single document. However, there is no facility in ViewPoint books for sharing the same book with other users. Each user may have a copy of the same book on his workstation, like any other document, but there is no facility for sharing information concerning the status and tracking of revisions created by other users to a book or documents contained in a book.
The ViewPoint ("VP") software system includes a form of "shared" structured data objects in the form of the file drawer abstraction, described in "Filing", VP Series Reference Library, Version 1.0, Xerox Corporation, 1985, pp. 1-60. As described at pages 4-7 and 20-21, a file drawer stores information on a remote file server, which is a physically remote accessible device so that the iconic representation is referred to as a reference icon on the desktop and is shown in half tone to represent this remote state. Structured data objects, such as file folders and documents digitally stored in a file drawer, can be shared by many users, in accordance with access rights, as illustrated at pages 40-43, i.e., users with access rights can access copies of data objects from the same file drawer. A file drawer is represented on the display by a relatively small icon with a pictorial file drawer representation with a name appearing within the representation. As explained in patent application Ser. No. 856,526, via a sequence of keyboard and mouse signals, the user can select the icon and request an &lt;OPEN&gt; operation, in which case a window appears on the display workspace showing the file drawer contents, as described and shown at pages 9-10 and 32- 34. Unless covered by a window, the file drawer icon remains visible in shadow form while the file drawer window remains in its opened state. The user can subsequently close the file drawer window, in which case, the window disappears and the icon resumes its original solid iconic appearance. The ViewPoint system also includes other reference icons described at pages 11-15,22-25 and 49-60, which can also be used to access in read only form a "shared" structured data object.
Thus, relative to "shared" structured data objects located in a remote digital storage facility or file service represented as a file drawer abstraction of the desktop, it is important to note that access of a structured data object is possible by multiple users having proper access rights to the file drawer for placing a digital copy of a structured data object on the user's desktop for subsequent manipulation, editing, revision, insertion of new material, etc. In this sense, several users may access and share the same data or the same structured data objects, but individual users would be unaware of any changes made by other users unless other users restored the modified version of the structured data object back into the same file drawer and, further, other users periodically checked to see if and when an updated version of the structured data object may have been so restored, absent an electronic or phone message to other users informing them of the restored, updated revision.
Interleaf Technical Publishing Software Reference Manual, Release 3.0, Vol. 1,1986, pp. 15-1 through 15-18 and 16-1 through 16-19 describes features of Technical Publishing Software (TPS) that can be used similarly to the ViewPoint system's reference icons. Desktop links, described beginning at page 15-12, can be used to share files throughout a network, enabling a user to link to objects on other users' desktops, as further described at pages 15-17 and 15-18. In addition, every desktop has access to object in the System cabinet through "desktop links". A link icon points to a real file stored elsewhere on a user's workstation or on a remote storage facility on a local area network. Using links allows multiple users to simultaneously change different parts of a shared data object, e.g., a publication. However, there is no efficient means available for providing information relative to shared file status and tracking.
Link permissions and ownership are described beginning at page 15-13, and the Document Locked stickup is described beginning at page 15-15 in the TPS Reference Manual. This stickup, shown in FIG. 15-9, includes a message with information about the lock on a document, as would occur if the document were already open, either through a link or at another workstation using the same desktop. The use of desktop links in a book, a special directory that creates a relationship among documents it contains, is described beginning at page 16-18.
There are references in the art for providing information to users of shared data about the activities of other users. S. K. Sarin et al, "Software for Interactive On-Line Conferences," Proceedings ACM-SIGOA Conference on Office Information Systems, Toronto, Canada, June 25-27, 1984, describe a real-time conferencing system, RTCAL, in which a number of conference participants can each see a shared bitmap in a screen region, as shown in FIG. 3-2. Each user has a pointing device, such as a display cursor mouse, and when a bitmap server that supports the shared bitmap receives input indicating pointing activity by one of the users, that user's cursor is updated on every user's bitmap, as described in Section 3 at pages 15 and 18.
S. K. Sarin, Interactive On-Line Conferences, Ph.D. thesis, M.I.T. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, May 1984, also describes RTCAL, at pages 201-206. Elsewhere, at pages 47-57, Sarin describes JEDI, a real-time joint document editing system that includes a status window showing who is in a conference and other useful information about users, as described at pages 48 and 52 in relation to FIG. 2-4 and at page 57 in relation to a participant leaving a conference. Sarin discusses status information more generally at pages 75-78, pointing out ways in which a user can know what other users are doing and looking at. On page 78, Sarin points out that not all status information may fit on a user's screen at once, and suggests allocating a small amount of screen space to a main summary, with more detailed information available when needed by a "pop-up" viewport. Sarin further suggests special notification of significant changes in conference status, accompanied by an attention-getting mechanism, such as a bell ringing or flashing part of the screen, where the notification appears. Pages 206-213 describe "MBlink", in which each user can see the cursor positions of each user's workstation mouse. Pages 214-227 describe "XMBlink", a design that extends this feature.
S. K. Sarin et al, "Computer-Based Real-Time Conferencing Systems," Computer, pp. 33-45, October 1985, describe at page 34 a number of other systems providing information about activities of other users. FIG. 1 shows a summary window that provides further information about other users in a conference and an events window that displays important changes in status, such as, when a user is leaving or joining the conference or the passing of control to others, as described at page 36.
I. Greif et al, "Atomic Data Abstractions in a Distributed Collaborative Editing System," Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, St. Petersburg, Fla., pp. 160-172, January 1986, describe a distributed collaborative editing system called "CES." The functionality and design of CES are described at pages 164-165, including the sharing of documents among multiple authors. While a "tickle" lock is held, small actions made by the owner are committed after certain editing commands and remain visible when the lock is released. Screens of all readers of text that is being modified are updated at regular intervals as each small action commits.
Gregg Foster, CoLab, Tools for Computer-Based Cooperation, University of California, Computer Science Division, Berkeley, Calif., Report No. UCB/CSD 84/215, 1984, describes the use of RemoteMice, personalized images of mouse cursors active on remote machines, at page 13. The relaxation of WYSIWIS ("What You See Is What I See"), discussed at page 8, permits differences between the views of a display object seen by different users, which could be implemented by associating windows of different sizes or screen positions or by providing visible remote cursors only on demand.
Gregg Foster in his Ph.D. Thesis, Collaborative Systems and Multi-user Interfaces, University of California, Computer Science Division, 1986,(and later in G. Foster et al, "Cognoter, Theory and Practice of a Colab-orative Tool," Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Work, Austin, Tex., Dec. 3-5, 1986, pp. 7-15) defines a multi-user interface as a human-machine interface coordinated for several users sharing information at the same time, at page 35. At page 36, Foster discusses the use in multi-user applications of compressed versions of windows in which general activity is discernible but details are suppressed, and suggests this as an approach to the screen space problem. FIG. 4.1 shows a shared window that is seen on the display of each participant in a session using Cognoter, a program that provides a multi-user interface and a structured meeting process. FIG. 4.3 shows how a number of windows may appear during a Cognoter session, with some windows overlapping others. Tables 4.1.4.2 and 4.3 show a "Scrunch" operation that shrinks a display window. At page 87, Foster discusses busy signals, illustrated in FIG. 4.9, that signal potential conflict between users by greying-out items being edited, moved or grouped by other users.
L. N. Garrett et al, "Intermedia: Issues, Strategies, and Tactics in the Design of a Hypermedia Document System, Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Work, Austin, Tex., pp. 163-174, Dec. 3-5, 1986, although not itself prior art with respect to the present invention, describes Intermedia, a system that was publicly described in the prior art. Documents in Intermedia are linked, and a user can select a link marker and issue a command to cause the document at the other end of the link to be activated with information presented in a window. FIG. 2 shows how a link marker can be an icon conveying the nature of the information at the end of the link. A multi-user environment for a hypermedia system is described beginning at page 171. Options for notification of updates by other users, discussed on page 173, include immediate update, immediate notification, passive notification and no notification. One goal is a "seamless" environment over a large corpus of documents available to multiple users. This reference also, at page 173, refers to different aspects of the notion of notification of updates in a multi-user environment in that there are four possible ways a system could respond to other users relative to changes made to a system object: (1) provide an immediate update; (2) provide an immediate notification; (3) provide passive notification and (4) no notification. The last notion would not provide any formal notification of changes, but rather, the next time a document is opened, changes made by the user would somehow be reflected in the reopened document. M. Stefik et al, "Knowledge Programming in Loops: Report on an Experimental Course," The AI Magazine, pp. 3-13, Fall 1983, describe Truckin', a workstation board game in which each player has an iconic truck representation, as shown and described in relation to FIG. 5. Each player can have a separate workstation. Gauges described at pages 6-9 indicate the fuel, weight, and volume of each player's truck, and that can be concurrently observed by other players. Stefik, M. J., Bobrow, D. G. and Kahn, K. M., "Integrating Access-Oriented Programming into a Multiparadigm Environment," IEEE Software, pp. 10-18, January 1986 also describe gauges at pages 14-15 and Truckin' at pages 16-17.
Davids et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,525,779, describe a conversational video system capable of providing interactive conversational video data communications between pairs of users and that enables multiple conversations to be carried out by a given user in real-time, as shown and described in relation to FIGS. 1-2. The display at a keystation can be divided into a plurality of areas that can include first and second conversation areas or a first conversation area and an area for retrieved data, as shown and described in relation to FIG. 11 and FIGS. 10A-10F. Another feature is an incoming calls area of the display containing brief details of incoming calls and their interest messages, and the user may accept one of the incoming calls shown in order to have it displayed in one of the conversation areas. A user can list others from whom he is not prepared to accept calls using a CALL INHIBIT function or can specify a list of others to whom a call is directed using a CALL LIST function, as shown and described in relation to FIGS. 14-43. D. B. Leblang et al, "Computer-Aided Software Engineering in a Distributed Workstation Environment," in Henderson, P., (Ed.), Proceedings of the ACM SIGSOFT/SIGPLAN Software Engineering Symposium on Practical Software Development Environments, Pittsburgh, Pa., Apr. 23-24, 1984, describe DSEE, a software development environment. As described and shown on the fifth and sixth pages, each user of a group of users can view the items completed by other users immediately, as a reference to the completed item.
G. Foster et al, "Cognoter, Theory and practice of a Colab-orative Tool", Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Work, Austin, Tex., pp. 7-15, Dec. 3-5, 1986, which is not itself prior art with respect to the present invention, describes a computer program called "Cognoter" for use in a multi-user environment to provide collaboration among users participating in a group activity, such as a presentation, e.g., a talk or paper, wherein each user has an annotated outline of ordered ideas and associated text in a shared user interface present at each workstation. The user interface provides a visual indication to other users that a displayed item is undergoing alteration by another user.
In the article of M. Stefik et al, "WYSIWIS Revised: Early Experiences with Multi-User Interfaces," Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Austin, Tex., pp. 276-290, Dec. 3-5, 1986, which is not itself prior art with respect to the present invention, incorporated herein by reference thereto, there is a discussion at page 285, column one, about the problem in using the program, "Cognoter", G. Foster et al., "Cognoter, Theory and practice of a Colab-orative Tool", supra, that, when the windows are shrunk or reduced to their static icon representation, it is no longer possible for a user to assess quickly where a group activity is from moment to moment. The suggestion is made that, unlike conventional static icons, an icon representing the activity should somehow actively indicate when information concerning the group activity is changing. However, there no indication or suggestion in this paper as to how this suggestion would be visualized or implemented.
Relative to monitoring information among different users in a multi-user environment, there is known in the art the use of "system models" to monitor the activities of programmers working on different software modules together comprising a software system and determine how to rebuild or compile the system when one or more modules have been changed without losing modules or pointers to their remote locations. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,558,413, which corresponds to the dissertation of Eric Emerson Schmidt, entitled "Controlling Large Software Development in a Distributed Environment", University of California, Berkeley, approved November 1982, Brian T. Lewis, "Experience With a System for Controlling Software Versions in a Distributed Environment", Proceedings of the Symposium on Application and Assessment of Automated Tools for Software Development, IEEE and University of Texas at Austin, San Francisco, Calif., Nov. 1-3, 1983, and K. Marzullo et al, "Jasmine: A Software System Modelling Facility", Proceedings of the Symposium on Practical Software Development Environments, Palo Alto, Calif., Dec. 9-11, 1986, SIGPLAN Notices, Vol. 22(1), pp. 121-130, January, 1987. The system models used contain unique identifiers that are representative, for example, of a particular software module and contain pointers to information concerning its name, current version, its dependency on other software modules and its pathname to the storage facility where the module resides. However, there is no means provided for individual users to visually access on reduced scale or summarized basis, an entry detail representation of the current status of each module or part or entry of such a system, the current activity as to any particular module or part and whether access is available relative to a particular module or part.
A concept of a shared structured data object is disclosed in the published article of David K. Gifford, "Violet, An Experimental Decentralized System", CSL-79-12, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, September, 1979. Violet is a decentralized information system with implementation at the file service wherein information is shared among multi-users. The user interface disclosed pertains to a shared appointment calendar wherein a user can take control of data entry to be made in a common appointment calendar by invoking a write transaction which sets an "intention-write lock". This lock is not final until converted into a "commit lock" so that a final write to the calendar for all users to see is arbitrated among multi-users relative to the first to commit after set of the intention-write lock by writing data to the user's displayed representation of the calendar.
It is a principal object of this invention to provide a means in the form of a representation indicative of the status of and tracking changes to shared structured data objects accessible as a multi-user application in a real-time collaborative environment without the need of keeping track of or identifying any of the remote instances of the representation. Thus, it is a prime objective of this invention to provide a multi-user environment and collaborative type system with a user interface that provides for free and friendly accessibility among different users to shared structured data objects and managing the shared structured data object throughout its life cycle to permit users to concentrate more on the structured data object substance processes and less on the management and production coordination processes.